SAKINA Call to Action in Response to Asian Forest Fires
9/27/97
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Headline: SAKINA Call to Action in Response to Asian Forest Fires
Source: SAKINA
Date: 9/27/97
SEPTEMBER 1997 INDONESIA BURNING
This week Sumatra and Borneo have been burning.
Many people are choking and 232 lives were lost in a plane crash.
But this has not stopped Asian foresters lighting even more fires.
Some of these areas are not virgin forest, simply because deforestation
is already so extensive, but the wildlife destruction is immense.
Environmentalists monitoring satellite pictures said between
500,000 and 600,000 ha was burning or had already been destroyed.
The head of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature,
Dr. Syed Babar Ali, called it an "international catastrophe".
This burning is an intentional act coinciding with
severe drought and delayed monsoons brought on by
el Nino - a crisis itself believed to be linked to global warming.
Lest we think this will be a final lesson, be warned!
ASIAN LOGGING COMPANIES are rapidly exhausting South-East Asia
and are MOVING INTO THE AMAZON BASIN. If we do not combine to
make a watershed for biodiversity now there will be a lot worse to come.
The Amazon is already going up in smoke far too fast as it is.
Habitat destruction is the key cause of biodiversity genocide.
We participated in good faith in Rio, but Rio has come an gone and
destruction of Earth's natural habitat continues to accelerate.
It is time to make a clear collective stand and say:
ENOUGH! STOP THE HOLOCAUST OF BIODIVERSITY!
This is the tragedy of the commons of all life on earth -
We thus issue an invitation and a passionate call to make
SAKINA 2000 JERUSALEM
our place to make a clear stand for WORLD BIODIVERSITY.
To work together to create an event which shows the
world what ecofeminism and the power of cooperation can do.
Please send offers of help, catalysis and support. We need grant
funding, sponsorship and cooperative involvement to make this
a turning point for biodiversity. The place where the flood-tide turned
for the preservation of life in its living diversity - while we still have
it.
JAN 97 WORLD-WATCH INSTITUTE REPORT:
"Five years after participants at the Earth Summit promised
to attack global environmental ills, forests still disappear, the air
is murkier than ever, and the world's population is nearly half a billion.
Governments are lagging badly in meeting goals set at the 1992
Rio de Janeiro summit, the World-Watch Institute said in its
annual global review released yesterday. "Unfortmately, few Govemments
have even begun the policy changes that will be needed
to put the world on an environmentally sustainable path."
Among Worldwatch's gloomiest conclusions: millions of hectares
of tropical and deciduous forest still disappear each year, carbon
dioxide emissions are at record highs and population growth
is outpacing food production. Christopher Flavin, a lead author
of the report, calls the Earth Summit a "last hurrah" for the
idea that sweeping Government programmes can cure a sick planet.
So what WAS the result?
JULY 97 EARTH SUMMIT FAILS TO AGREE
Developed countries failed to agree to meet commitments on
environmental intiatives. President of the United Nations
General Assembly Razali Ismail of Malaysia said achievements
since Rio had been "paltry" and predicted castrophe if action
was not taken soon. "We as a species, as a planet, are teetering
on the edge, living unsustainabty and perpetuating inequity,
and may soon pass the point of no return."
"Our words have not been matched by deeds."
SAKINA Epiphany 2000 JERUSALEM
We are thus calling for help and catalytic cooperation to work
towards a global resolution of three key issues at SAKINA 2000.
(1) World peace (Sakina is the Spirit of Tranquillity).
(2) Biodiversity renewal - turning the tide for Life.
(3) Restoration of respect and empowerment to the feminine.
Surely these are the three central hopes of ecofeminism?
These three issues are one braid, one dilemma and one resolution.
Let's make this a flood-tide for the preservation
of life in all its living diversity - while we still have it!
SAKINA is three things:
(1) A CONFERENCE of feminine Wisdom - "Realizing the Tree of Life"
(2) A PEACE EMPOWERMENT - invoking the Shekhinah.
(3) A CULTURAL/MUSIC FESTIVAL
- ecosystemic diversity within the unity of life.
Please repy with offers of help, catalysis and cooperation with
the process of securing funding, and planning the event.
love - as always, Chris King